Chuck Schumer calls for action on deportations

President Barack Obama should stop deporting people who would be eligible to remain in the country under the Senate’s immigration bill if the House doesn’t act by September, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Thursday.

“We remain focused on passing a balanced immigration bill that secures our borders and fixes a broken system,” the New York Democrat said in a statement to POLITICO. “But if the House recesses in September without passing immigration reform, in October the administration should stop deporting hard-working and law-abiding people who would be covered by the Senate bill.”

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Schumer’s comments make him the third member this week of the Senate’s Gang of Eight to call for Obama to do something to stop the pace of deportations. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) made similar comments Tuesday and Wednesday.

His remarks represent the latest victory for anti-deportation forces, who have gained substantial momentum in recent days and weeks.

On Tuesday Janet Murguía, the president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino advocacy organization, labeled Obama the “deporter-in-chief” and said he must change his deportation policy, which has sent away nearly 2 million people since taking office in 2009.

Schumer is asking the Obama administration to stop deporting undocumented immigrants except for felons, those with repeat misdemeanor convictions and people who came to the United States after Jan. 1, 2012.

His comments come hours after United We Dream, an organization of immigrant youths, launched a campaign to pressure him to ask the White House to stop deportations.

“We have Sen. Menendez and Sen. Durbin who have come out as well and we are looking up to the leadership to do this,” said Cristina Jimenez, the managing director of United We Dream, which is organizing the Schumer protests. “Sen. Schumer is the next focus of our campaign.”

United We Dream’s campaign aimed to collect online petitions and protests at his appearances in New York, Jimenez said.

“If we don’t hear from him soon,” Jimenez said, “we will escalate.”

Asked Thursday about the “deporter-in-chief” tag, Obama on Thursday called himself the “champion-in-chief” of comprehensive immigration reform but said that he can do nothing to stop deportations unless Congress acts.

“What I’ve said in the past remains true: Until Congress passes a new law I am constrained in what I can do,” Obama said at a town hall forum, “At a certain point, the reason that the deportations are taking place is Congress said you have to enforce these laws.”

Immigration activists have plans to make an array of Democrats the targets of their anti-deportation ire. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Democratic leaders at the Capitol like Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Michael Bennet, activists say, will all be forced to say if Obama should act on his own.

Anti-deportation protesters were present at Obama’s Wednesday events in New England, where he stumped for a minimum wage increase in Connecticut and appeared at fundraisers in Massachusetts.

“We’re looking at all Democrats, no Democrat is not going to hear from us,” Jimenez said. “Every single Democrat is going to hear from us. Our priority is leadership and those who have been out there leading the debate on immigration reform.”